but no sooner had I left Mairena than it began again, and Seville was
sixteen miles away. It poured steadily. I tramped up the hills, covered
with nut-trees; I wound down into valleys; the way seemed interminable.
I tramped on. At last from the brow of a hill I saw in the distance the
Giralda and the clustering houses of Seville, but all grey in the wet;
above it heavy clouds were lowering. On and on!
The day was declining, and Seville now was almost hidden in the mist,
but I reached a road. I came to the first tavern of the environs; after
a while to the first houses, then the road gave way to slippery cobbles,
and I was in Seville. The Saints be praised!
XXXII
[Sidenote: Granada]
To go from Seville to Granada is like coming out of the sunshine into
deep shadow. I arrived, my mind full of Moorish pictures, expecting to
find a vivid, tumultuous life; and I was ready with a prodigal hand to
dash on the colours of my admiration. But Granada is a sad town, grey
and empty; its people meander, melancholy, through the streets,
unoccupied. It is a tradeless place living on the monuments which
attract strangers, and like many a city famous for stirring history,
seems utterly exhausted. Granada gave me an impression that it wished
merely to be left alone to drag out its remaining days in peace, away
from the advance of civilisation and the fervid hurrying of progress: it
seemed like a great adventuress retired from the world after a life of
vicissitude, anxious only to be forgotten, and after so much storm and
stress to be nothing more than pious. There must be many descendants of
the Moors, but the present population is wan and lifeless. They are
taciturn, sombre folk, with nothing in them of the chattering and
vivacious creatures of Arab history. Indeed, as I wandered through the
streets, it was not the Moors that engaged my mind, but rather Ferdinand
of Arragon and Isabella of Castille. Their grim strength over-powered
the more graceful shadows of Moordom; and it was only by an effort that
I recalled Gazul and Musa, most gallant and amorous of Paynim knights,
tilting in the square, displaying incredible valour in the slaughter of
savage bulls. I thought of the Catholic Kings, in full armour, riding
with clank of steel through the captured streets. And the snowy summits
of the Sierra Nevada, dazzling sometimes under the sun and the blue sky,
but more often veiled with mist and capped by heavy clouds, grim and
terrifying, lent a sort of tragic interest to the scene; so that I felt
those grey masses, with their cloak of white, (they seemed near enough
to overwhelm one,) made it impossible for the town built at their very
feet, to give itself over altogether to flippancy.
And for a while I found little of interest in Granada but the Alhambra.
The gipsy quarter, with neither beauty, colour, nor even a touch of
barbarism, is a squalid, brutal place, consisting of little dens built
in the rock of the mountain which stands opposite the Alhambra. Worse
than hovels, they are the lairs of wild beasts, foetid and oppressive,
inhabited by debased creatures, with the low forehead, the copper skin,
and the shifty cruel look of the Spanish gipsy. They surround the
visitor in their rags and tatters, clamouring for alms, and for
exorbitant sums proposing to dance. Even in the slums of great cities I
have not seen a life more bestial. I tried to imagine what sort of
existence these people led. In the old days the rock-dwellings among the
cactus served the gipsies for winter quarters only, and when the spring
came they set off, scouring the country for something to earn or steal;
but that is long ago. For two generations they have remained in these
hovels--year in, year out--employed in shoeing horses, shearing, and the
like menial occupations which the Spaniard thinks beneath his dignity.
The women tell fortunes, or dance for the foreigner, or worse. It is a
mere struggle for daily bread. I wondered whether in the spring-time the
young men loved the maidens, or if they only coupled like the beasts. I
saw one pair who seemed quite newly wed; for their scanty furniture was
new and they were young. The man, short and squat, sat scowling,
cross-legged on a chair, a cigarette between his lips. The woman was
taller and not ill-made, a slattern; her hair fell dishevelled on her
back and over her forehead; her dress was open, displaying the bosom;
her apron was filthy. But when she smiled, asking for money, her teeth
were white and regular, and her eyes flashed darkly. She was attractive
in a heavy sensual fashion, attractive and at the same time horribly
repellant: she was the sort of woman who might fetter a man to herself
by some degrading, insuperable passion, the true Carmen of the famous
story whom a man might at once love and hate; so that though she dragged
him to hell in shame and in despair, he would never find the strength to
free himself. But where among that bastard race was the splendid desire
for freedom of their fathers, the love of the fresh air of heaven and
the untrammeled life of the fields?
At first glance also the cathedral seemed devoid of charm. I suppose
travellers seek emotions in the things they see, and often the more
beautiful objects do not give the most vivid sensations. Painters
complain that men of letters have written chiefly of second-rate
pictures, but the literary sentiment is different from the artistic; and
a masterpiece of Perugino may excite it less than a mediocre work of
Guido Reni.
The cathedral of Granada is said by the excellent Fergusson to be the
most noteworthy example in Europe of early Renaissance architecture; its
proportions are evidently admirable, and it is designed and carried out
according to all the canons of the art. 'Looking at its plan only,' he
says, 'this is certainly one of the finest churches in Europe. It would
be difficult to point out any other, in which the central aisle leads up
to the dome, so well proportioned to its dimensions, and to the dignity
of the high altar which stands under it.' But though I vaguely
recognised these perfections, though the spacing appeared fine and
simple, and the columns had a certain majesty, I was left more than a
little cold. The whitewash with which the interior is coated gives an
unsympathetic impression, and the abundant light destroys that mystery
which the poorest, gaudiest Spanish church almost invariably possesses.
In the _Capilla de los Reyes_ are the elaborate monuments of the
Catholic Kings, of their daughter Joan the Mad, and of Philip her
husband; below, in the crypt, are four simple coffins, in which after so
much grandeur, so much joy and sorrow, they rest. Indeed, for the two
poor women who loved without requite, it was a life of pain almost
unrelieved: it is a pitiful story, for all its magnificence, of Joan
with her fiery passion for the handsome, faithless, worthless husband,
and her mad jealousy; and of Isabella, with patient strength bearing
every cross, always devoted to the man who tired of her quickly, and
repaid her deep affection with naught but coldness and distrust.
Queen Isabella's sword and sceptre are shown in the sacristry, and in
contrast with the implement of war a beautiful cope, worked with her
royal hands. And her crown also may be seen, one of the few I have come
across which might really become the wearer, of silver, a masterpiece of
delicate craftsmanship.
But presently, returning to the cathedral and sitting in front of the
high altar, I became at last conscious of its airy, restful grace. The
chancel is very lofty. The base is a huge arcade which gives an effect
of great lightness; and above are two rows of pictures, and still higher
two rows of painted windows. The coloured glass throws the softest
lights upon the altar and on the marble floor, rendering even quieter
the low tints of the pictures. These are a series of illustrations of
the life of the Blessed Virgin, painted by Alonzo Cano, a native of
Valladolid, who killed his wife and came to Granada, whereupon those in
power made him a prebendary. In the obscurity I could not see the
paintings, but divined soft and pleasant things after the style of
Murillo, and doubtless that was better than actually to see them. The
pulpits are gorgeously carved in wood, and from the walls fly great
angels with fine turbulence of golden drapery. And in the contrast of
the soft white stone with the gold, which not even the most critical
taste could complain was too richly spread, there is a delicate,
fascinating lightness: the chancel has almost an Italian gaiety, which
comes upon one oddly in the gloomy town. Here the decoration, the gilded
virgins, the elaborate carving, do not oppress as elsewhere; the effect
is too debonair and too refreshing. It is one colour more, one more
distinction, in the complexity of the religious sentiment.
* * *
But if what I have said of Granada seems cold, it is because I did not
easily catch the spirit of the place. For when you merely observe and
admire some view, and if industrious make a note of your impression, and
then go home to luncheon, you are but a vulgar tripper, scum of the
earth, deserving the ridicule with which the natives treat you. The
romantic spirit is your only justification; when by the comeliness of
your life or the beauty of your emotion you have attained that, (Shelley
when he visited Paestum had it, but Théophile Gautier, flaunting his red
waistcoat _tras los montes_, was perhaps no better than a Cook's
tourist,) then you are no longer unworthy of the loveliness which it is
your privilege to see. When the old red brick and the green trees say to
you hidden things, and the _vega_ and the mountains are stretched before
you with a new significance, when at last the white houses with their
brown tiles, and the labouring donkey, and the peasant at his plough,
appeal to you so as to make, as it were, an exquisite pattern on your
soul, then you may begin to find excuses for yourself. But you may see
places long and often before they are thus magically revealed to you,
and for myself I caught the real emotion of Granada but once, when from
the Generalife I looked over the valley, the Generalife in which are
mingled perhaps more admirably than anywhere else in Andalusia all the
charm of Arabic architecture, of running water, and of cypress trees, of
purple flags and dark red roses. It is a spot, indeed, fit for the
plaintive creatures of poets to sing their loves, for Paolo and
Francesca, for Juliet and Romeo; and I am glad that there I enjoyed such
an exquisite moment.
XXXIII
[Sidenote: The Alhambra]
From the church of _San Nicolas_, on the other side of the valley, the
Alhambra, like all Moorish buildings externally very plain, with its red
walls and low, tiled roofs, looks like some old charter-house. Encircled
by the fresh green of the spring-time, it lies along the summit of the
hill with an infinite, most simple grace, dun and brown and deep red;
and from the sultry wall on which I sat the elm-trees and the poplars
seemed very cool. Thirstily, after the long drought, the Darro, the Arab
stream which ran scarlet with the blood of Moorish strife, wound its way
over its stony bed among the hills; and beyond, in strange contrast with
all the fertility, was the grey and silent grandeur of the Sierra
Nevada. Few places can be more charming than the green wood in which
stands the stronghold of the Moorish kings; the wind sighs among the
topmost branches and all about is the sweet sound of running water; in
spring the ground is carpeted with violets, and the heavy foliage gives
an enchanting coldness. A massive gateway, flanked by watch-towers,
forms the approach; but the actual entrance, offering no hint of the
incredible magnificence within, is an insignificant door.
But then, then you are immediately transported to a magic palace,
existing in some uncertain age of fancy, which does not seem the work of
human hands, but rather of Jin, an enchanted dwelling of seven lovely
damsels. It is barely conceivable that historical persons inhabited such
a place. At the same time it explains the wonderful civilisation of the
Moors in Spain, with their fantastic battles, their songs and strange
histories; and it brings the _Arabian Nights_ into the bounds of sober
reality: after he has seen the Alhambra none can doubt the literal truth
of the stories of Sinbad the Sailor and of Hasan of Bassorah.
* * *
From the terrace that overlooks the city you enter the Court of
Myrtles--a long pool of water with goldfish swimming to and fro,
enclosed by myrtle hedges. At the ends are arcades, borne by marble
columns with capitals of surpassing beauty. It is very quiet and very
restful; the placid water gives an indescribable sensation of delight,
and at the end mirrors the slender columns and the decorated arches so
that in reflection you see the entrance to a second palace, which is
filled with mysterious, beautiful things. But in the Alhambra the
imagination finds itself at last out of its depth, it cannot conjure up
chambers more beautiful than the reality presents. It serves only to
recall the old inhabitants to the deserted halls.
The Moors continually used inscriptions with great effect, and there is
one in this court which surpasses all others in its oriental imagery, in
praise of Mohammed V.: _Thou givest safety from the breeze to the
blades of grass, and inspirest terror in the very stars of heaven. When
the shining stars quiver, it is through dread of thee, and when the
grass of the field bends down it is to give thee thanks._
But it is the Hall of the Ambassadors which shows most fully the
unparalleled splendour of Moorish decoration. It is a square room, very
lofty, with alcoves on three sides, at the bottom of which are windows;
and the walls are covered, from the dado of tiles to the roof, with the
richest and most varied ornamentation. The Moorish workmen did not spare
themselves nor economise their exuberant invention. One pattern follows
another with infinite diversity. Even the alcoves, and there are nine,
are covered each with different designs, so that the mind is bewildered
by their graceful ingenuity. All kinds of geometrical figures are used,
enlacing with graceful intricacy, intersecting, combining and
dissolving; conventional foliage and fruit, Arabic inscriptions. An
industrious person has counted more than one hundred and fifty patterns
in the Hall of the Ambassadors, impressed with iron moulds on the moist
plaster of the walls. The roof is a low dome of larch wood, intricately
carved and inlaid with ivory and with mother-of-pearl; it has been
likened to the faceted surface of an elaborately cut gem. The effect is
so gorgeous that you are oppressed; you long for some perfectly plain
space whereon to rest the eye; but every inch is covered.
Now the walls have preserved only delicate tints of red and blue, pale
Wedgwood blues and faded terracottas, that make with the ivory of the
plaster most exquisite harmonies; but to accord with the tiles, their
brilliancy still undiminished, the colours must have been very bright.
The complicated patterns and the gay hues reproduce the oriental carpets
of the nomad's tent; for from the tent, it is said, (I know not with
what justification,) all oriental architecture is derived. The fragile
columns upon which rest masses of masonry are, therefore, direct
imitations of tent-poles, and the stalactite borders of the arches
represent the fringe of the woven hangings. The Moorish architect paid
no attention to the rules of architecture, and it has been well said
that if they existed for him at all it was only that he might
elaborately disregard them. His columns generally support nothing; his
arcades, so delicately worked that they seem like carved ivory, are of
the lightest wood and plaster.
And it is curious that there should be such durability in those dainty
materials: they express well the fatalism of the luxurious Moor, to whom
the past and future were as nothing, and the transient hour all in all;
yet they have outlasted him and his conqueror. The Spaniard, inglorious
and decayed, is now but the showman to this magnificence; time has seen
his greatness come and go, as came and went the greatness of the Moor,
but still, for all its fragility, the Alhambra stands hardly less
beautiful. Travellers have always been astonished at the small size of
the Alhambra, especially of the Court of Lions; for here, though the
proportion is admirable the scale is tiny; and many have supposed that
the Moors were of less imposing physique than modern Europeans. The
Court is surrounded by exquisite little columns, singly, in twos, in
threes, supporting horseshoe arches; and in the centre is that beautiful
fountain, borne by twelve lions with bristly manes, standing very
stiffly, whereon is the inscription: _O thou who beholdest these lions
crouching, fear not. Life is wanting to enable them to show their fury._
Indeed, their surroundings have such a delicate and playful grace that
it is hard to believe the Moors had any of our strenuous, latter-day
passions. Life must have been to them a masque rather than a
tragi-comedy; and whether they belong to sober history or no, those
contests of which the curious may read in the lively pages of Gines
Perez de Hita accord excellently with the fanciful environment. In the
Alhambra nothing seems more reasonable than those never-ending duels in
which, for a lady's favour, gallant knights gave one another such blows
that the air rang with them, such wounds that the ground was red with
blood; but at sunset they separated and bound up their wounds and
returned to the palace. And the king, at the relation of the adventure,
was filled with amazement and with great content.
* * *
Yet, notwithstanding, I find in the Alhambra something unsatisfying; for
many an inferior piece of architecture has set my mind a-working so that
I have dreamed charming dreams, or seen vividly the life of other times.
But here, I know not why, my imagination helps me scarcely at all. The
existence led within these gorgeous walls is too remote; there is but
little to indicate the thoughts, the feelings, of these people, and one
can take the Alhambra only as a thing of beauty, and despair to
understand.
I know that it is useless to attempt with words to give an idea of these
numerous chambers and courts. A string of superlatives can do no more
than tire the reader, an exact description can only confuse; nor is the
painter able to give more than a suggestion of the bewildering charm.
The effect is too emotional to be conveyed from man to man, and each
must feel it for himself. Charles V. called him unhappy who had lost
such treasure--_desgraciado el que tal perdio_--and showed his own
appreciation by demolishing a part to build a Renaissance palace for
himself! It appears that kings have not received from heaven with their
right divine to govern wrong the inestimable gift of good taste; and for
them possibly it is fortunate, since when, perchance, a sovereign has
the artistic temperament, a discerning people--cuts off his head.
XXXIV
[Sidenote: Boabdil the Unlucky]
He was indeed unhappy who lost such treasure. The plain of Granada
smiles with luxuriant crops, a beautiful country, gay with a hundred
colours, and in summer when the corn is ripe it burns with vivid gold.
The sun shines with fiery rays from the blue sky, and from the
snow-capped mountains cool breezes temper the heat.
But from his cradle Boabdil was unfortunate; soothsayers prophesied that
his reign would see the downfall of the Moorish power, and his every
step tended to that end. Never in human existence was more evident the
mysterious power of the three sisters, the daughters of Night; the Fates
had spun his destiny, they placed the pitfalls before his feet and
closed his eyes that he might not see; they hid from him the way of
escape. _Allah Achbar!_ It was destiny. In no other way can be explained
the madness which sped the victims of that tragedy to their ruin; for
with the enemy at their very gates, the Muslims set up and displaced
kings, plotted and counterplotted. Boabdil was twice deposed and twice
regained the throne. Even when the Christian kingdoms had united to
consume the remnant of Moorish sovereignty the Moors could not cease
their quarrelling. Boabdil looked on with satisfaction while the
territory of the rival claimant to his crown was wrested from him, and
did not understand that his turn must inevitably follow. Verily, the
gods, wishing to destroy him, had deranged his mind. It is a pitiful
history of treachery and folly that was enacted while the Catholic
Sovereigns devoured the pomegranate, seed by seed.
To me history, with its hopes bound to be frustrated and its useless
efforts, sometimes is so terrible that I can hardly read. I feel myself
like one who lives, knowing the inevitable future, and yet is powerless
to help. I see the acts of the poor human puppets, and know the disaster
that must follow. I wonder if the Calvinists ever realised the agony of
that dark God of theirs, omniscient and yet so strangely weak, to whom
the eternal majesty of heaven was insufficient to save the predestined
from everlasting death.
* * *
On March 22, 1491, began the last siege of Granada.
Ferdinand marched his army into the plain and began to destroy the
crops, taking one by one the surrounding towns. He made no attempt upon
the city itself, and hostilities were confined to skirmishes beneath the
walls and single combats between Christian knights and Muslim cavaliers,
wherein on either side prodigies of valour were performed. Through the
summer the Moors were able to get provisions from the Sierra Nevada, but
when, with winter, the produce of the earth grew less and its conveyance
more difficult, famine began to make itself felt. The Moors consoled
themselves with the hope that the besieging army would retire with the
cold weather, for such in those days was the rule of warfare; but
Ferdinand was in earnest. When an accidental fire burned his camp, he
built him a town of solid stone and mortar, which he named Santa Fè. It
stands still, the only town in Spain wherein a Moorish foot has never
trod. Then the Muslims understood at last that the Spaniard would never
again leave that fruitful land.
And presently they began to talk of surrender; Spanish gold worked its
way with Boabdil's councillors, and before winter was out the
capitulation was signed.
On the second day of the new year the final scene of the tragedy was
acted. Early in the morning, before break of day, Boabdil had sent his
mother and his wife with the treasure to precede him to the Alpuxarras,
in which district, by the conditions of the treaty, Ferdinand had
assigned him a little kingdom. Himself had one more duty to perform, and
at the prearranged hour he sallied forth with a wretched escort of fifty
knights. On the Spanish side the night had been spent in joy and
feasting; but how must Boabdil have spent his, thinking of the
inevitable morrow? To him the hours must have sped like minutes. What
must have been the agony of his last look at the Alhambra, that jewel of
incalculable price? Mendoza, the cardinal, had been sent forward to
occupy the palace, and Boabdil passed him on the hill.
Soon he reached Ferdinand, who was stationed near a mosque surrounded by
all the glory of his Court, pennons flying, and knights in their
magnificent array. Boabdil would have thrown himself from his horse in
sign of homage to kiss the hand of the king of Arragon, but Ferdinand
prevented him. Then Boabdil delivered the keys of the Alhambra to the
victor, saying: 'They are thine, O king, since Allah so decrees it; use
thy success with clemency and moderation.' Moving on sadly he saluted
Isabella, and passed to rejoin his family; the Christians processioned
to the city with psalm-singing.
But when Boabdil was crossing the mountains he turned to look at the
city he had lost, and burst into tears.
'You do well,' said his mother, 'to weep like a woman for what you could
not defend like a man.'
'Alas!' he cried, 'when were woes ever equal to mine?'